A One Way Ticket
by Drakkensdatter
Summary: Read it out loud... if you dare!
1. Once Upon a Time

**AN**: April Fool's! Obviously I didn't disappear (since I still reviewed... oops). I did read my story out loud, but, alas, either the words were not good enough, or I don't have the gift to read things in and out of stories. However, if anyone can read things in and out of stories, I will be posting a 2nd chapter where the person reading the story goes to the Inkworld, so feel free to read it out loud, I would just ask if you could read the first chapter first, so I can join you ;)

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><p>Once upon a time, there was a story, a magical story.<p>

But before there was the story, there was a girl who loved stories. Exotic stories of dragons and elves and spaceships and magic sung by black letters on white pages. She had grown up on stories- even before she could read, her mother had spun fantastic worlds and inquisitive heroes out of scraps of words and her imagination and brought them to life with the magic of her voice. Her father had even opened up the world of hairy-footed hobbits and grey-bearded wizards locked behind doors of print with his deep, vibrating voice.

Though she did eat food, sometimes she thought that all her real sustenance came from words and the stories they weaved like spider-webs. Sometimes, she even forgot her own stomach's voice, drowned out by the words.

Then she read _the_ story.

The magic of the book captivated her, for it was a story as much about stories and books and a young girl (not unlike herself) who loved them as much as it was a story about magic and an evil prince and an un-heroic fire-breather who performed heroic deeds. Indeed, in the course of the story, the young girl who loved stories joined one, and slipped inside the words of a book.

The story spoke to the first girl with many voices; voices of fear that made her heart thud, a voice of confusion for the predicament of the girl so like herself, and a voice of cheerful triumph at the evil prince's death. Yet over all of the voices which yelled at, sang to or hypnotized the girl, one quiet voice stood out. A voice which whispered, "Why not you? Could you not do the same thing and slip between the covers of this book?"

A voice within the girl's head very firmly replied "Yes, wouldn't that be nice if it were true, but it's not, it's fiction." And another said "Yes, and, anyways, would you really want to go to a world where women can't even earn a living?"

But a voice in her heart said "We can create stories. We know how to spin words. What if we did write something where we went there and met all those wonderful characters?" And another in her heart said, "Yes, and we could read it aloud, too..."

So the girl wrote, and when she was finished writing, she took the battered old notebook and the purple pen to a quiet place in the house, and she read out loud what she had written, trying to ignore the voices in her head. And when she looked up, she found herself no longer in her parents' house, but in an old farm-house where lived a bookbinder called Silvertongue with his family.


	2. Your Turn

Once upon a time, there was a girl who loved stories. Many nights she dreamed and hoped and wished that she would actually get to be in one of the wonderful stories she read about. Sometimes she imagined that when the mail came, it contained a letter telling her she was accepted into a magical school. Other times, she saw a world on the other side of her closet door. But always, reality crashed back into her life and reminded her that the worlds of her favorite stories were inaccessible to her.

Then one day, one of her stories told her the secret to traveling inside the pages. One needed only to read aloud the correct story, and possess the right gifts, and the worlds of magic and wonder she had only dreamed about would become reality for her.

Feverishly, she wrote, her fingers flying so fast that later she would have trouble reading those same words. She was a writer! Why couldn't she write such a story? She filled up few pages, but went back often to cross things out and add in other bits when...

Finally! It was finished! Now she had only to read it out loud, and finally, finally, she would see fairies and giants and brownies!

But wait, she thought, I can't be the only one who has ever wanted to travel to Narnia or the Inkworld or Hogwarts or Pern. It seems unfair to leave so many people out of the secret. So she thought a little while, then added a second part to her writing.

There! she thought, Now if anyone else who sees this story wants to join me, all they must do is read it out loud, too!

And so she made it available for the world to read on a site which did not allow its name to be typed out, and many people did read the story out loud and did travel to that far off world. And all those who travelled there did have wonderful adventures, but that is a story for another time.

Now you, dear reader, have reached the end of this story. But the question is, when you look up from your screen, what universe will you be in?


End file.
